Audrey Young’s NZ Herald coverage of the Electoral Finance Bill has almost single-handedly saved our fourth estate from appearing complicit in Labour/NZ First’s astonishing attack on democracy’s most important freedom. She should be an example to the ignorami generally populating political journalism.  They probably regard her instead as a curious relic of ‘old style’ journalism, for obsession and thinking the facts are more important than her ‘personality’ opinion.

Laidlaw’s Radio NZ Sunday Pravda session a week ago was revealing in this regard. It discussed research confirming the left bias of journalists. All interviewees were insiders. They smugly dismissed the bias as unimportant. Not one of them saw the connnection with the Electoral Finance Bill’s measures to ban campaigns that might compete with media insider preferences.

Labour’s confidence in the left bias among journalists prompts their law to shut down privately funded election speech. When ordinary citizens can’t pay for communication with other citizens, the agenda is controlled by the gatekeepers in the media. They decide who and what gets covered in ‘unpaid’ news reporting.

Labour believes the PC media consensus will favour them, even if National gain power (and thus control of government funded advertising, which will be exempt from the new gag).

Today’s Herald editorial cements their claim to leadership of the serious media.